MULTIMEDIA MEETS RADIO

Re-thinking radio's digital future

British consumers have bought six million DAB radios because they want to listen to services which are not available on either AM or FM. It is a familiar argument and one that has become the mantra of countless analysts, consultants, broadcasters, regulators and journalists.

I have spread the same message through conference speeches, articles, e-mails and blog posts. But now we are all being asked to think again, as France questions whether listeners really do want more choice.

Although DMB audio is less efficient than DAB+, this is only a problem if your objective is to extend choice. But the GRN believes that French listeners are already well served.

"Significantly increased programme offering is not a strong consumer demand," says Radio France's Sylvain Anichini. "In France, there is already a very diverse offering in most places."

In Paris alone, listeners can tune into around 50 FM stations.

Anichini's comments come as France appears poised to adopt T-DMB technology for digital radio services, even though it was designed for mobile TV. It is an audacious move backed by the Groupement pour la Radio Numérique (Association for Digital Radio), a group of broadcasters whose members have more than 95 per cent of France's domestic audience.

GRN members have already started trial services in Paris, with a nationwide commercial launch planned for Christmas 2008. The French authorities will provide frequencies in the VHF (Band III) and Band L range.

The GRN is plumping for T-DMB, rather than DAB+, because its members believe that multimedia services will play an important part in the future of radio. Unless radio becomes interactive and adds pictures, they say, it will die a slow, but inevitable death.

"Digital radio cannot only be digital sound - it needs to have the right functionalities to compete with other digital offerings," says Anichini. These include a screen, rich data, synchronization between data and sound and high audio quality.

French broadcasters are worried they are failing to reach younger audiences, who prefer the Internet - Anichini claims that young people find radio "dumb" and "one-dimensional." It is a common concern across Europe, for both radio and TV.

Indeed, the situation may even be worse for TV since radio’s unique advantage is that you can listen to it whilst doing other things. The challenge facing mobile TV, in contrast, is to convince consumers that it is not a “sit-back” medium.

Nevertheless, the GRN perceives mobile TV as a real threat. For this reason, they argue not only that radio needs to be interactive and able to offer video, but also that it must be available in DMB-equipped mobile phones.

The GRN says that because T-DMB is part of the DAB family, the new French phones will be backwards compatible with DAB and DAB+. However, the inverse is not true.

Samsung will provide the phones. However, Nokia, which prefers the rival DVB-H technology, is unlikely to follow suit.

Instead, the Finnish giant is offering a free Internet Radio download for all Nokia phones running the Series 60 operating system. The service, which allows users to browse for radio programmes by genre, language, country, or name, will be installed on new phones.

The fact that GRN broadcasters are demanding more bits for DMB services will further restrict competition. However, Nokia's Internet Radio could have a significant Long Tail effect by allowing small stations squeezed out by the GRN a real opportunity to reach new audiences.

This leads us to the other question mark against the French strategy: is multimedia really the future of radio? Despite massive investment, commercial broadcasters in the UK have so far failed to launch any truly successful services.

Multimedia is undoubtedly a sexy addition to radio, but can it really compete with the sophisticated services already available on the Internet?

Many outside France, including foreign regulators and receiver manufacturers, have condemned the GRN’s controversial decision to adopt T-DMB for radio services. But different countries may have different needs.

In terms of the upper layers and legacy equipment, if you build a network capable of transmitting DMB audio, it is easy to convert it to deliver DMB video. However, if you build a DAB+ network, there is no migration path to "something better than radio" which includes video.

In the real world, there is no migration path from a multiplex which provides 50 DAB+ channels to one that gives you 50 T-DMB channels.  Either you would have to drop some of the services, or you would have to build a new multiplex.

Although T-DMB is less spectrum efficient than DAB+, that is only a problem if you plan to launch new stations. In addition, French radio will require still more bits to provide the kind of interactive and video services being planned.

In the end, though, I suspect this is a question of culture and the depth of existing analogue services, rather than technology. Different choices - T-DMB or DAB+ - may be appropriate in different countries. Some countries may decide to complement "standard" DAB+ services with premium services on T-DMB.

[All changes to original text in Italics.]

Ian Dickens leaves DRDB

Hats off to Ian Dickens, who is stepping down today as Chief Executive of the Digital Radio Development Bureau. Over the past five years, Ian has overseen the success of DAB digital radio in the UK and provided a model for other countries to follow.

The DRDB is a consortium of public service and commercial broadcasters. Under Ian's guidance, they worked together as a team to collate market intelligence and provide support to retailers and manufacturers, as well as to extol the advantages of digital radio to consumers.

When Ian joined the DRDB in June 2002, digital radio had very little traction in the UK. The few available DAB receivers were expensive and only stocked by specialist retailers.

As we approach the end of 2007, there are well over 8000 shops in the UK selling more than 300 DAB products. More than 70 per cent of the population is aware of DAB and well over six million sets will be sold by Christmas.

That growth has been built on a successful marketing and communication strategy which has placed the consumer centre stage. As Ian told the EBU in June, “technologies, services, products, and retailers live or die by the consumer’s hand.”

DAB sales hit five million mark

Sales of DAB receivers in the UK have just passed the five million mark. The announcement was made by Ian Dickens, the CEO of Britain's Digital Radio Development Board, at the EBU Digital Radio Conference, in Geneva.

At the same event, Dominic Strowbridge of BT Movio suggested that EBU members should lobby EC Commissioner Viviane Reding about the commucation on mobile broadcasting, which is due in July. Dominic urged delegates to insist that the communication calls for digital radio to be included in any 'harmonised European mobile broadcasting receiver,' or whatever is the official name for whatever they are trying to acheive.

DRC07: radio in 2015

How will people listen to the radio in 2015? That’s the question that a group of academics put to more than 40 media ‘experts’ in Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and the UK.

The interviewees told the DRACE (Digital Radio Cultures in Europe) group that by 2015 most Europeans would have digital terrestrial radio. The DRACE report says DAB will be a strong option in the UK and Denmark, but supplemented with Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) and DMB.

However, those interviewed stress that DAB coverage patterns do not match the needs of commercial or community stations, for whom DAB is “an expensive and uneconomic system.”

DRM emerges as the favourite secondary system in Europe. Most see DRM and DAB as complementary systems.

Nevertheless, by 2015, Finns are likely to be using the DVB-H technology developed by Nokia, while Canadians will have IBOC, DAB and satellite radio. (Not really sure why the Canadians are in this survey.)

Most respondents to the DRACE questionnaire believe that a TV-style digital switchover for radio is very unlikely. They also predict that given existing market penetration, FM radio will continue to play a significant role in both Europe and Canada.

The interviewees say Internet radio and audio services will continue to grow. That is good news if, like me, you have forked out recently for a WiFi radio.

The survey finds no consensus about the dominant European way of delivering radio in 2015: most respondents predict there will be distinct national solutions. Differences in national regulation and frequency administration will fragment the digital radio landscape.

On the content front, the report highlights two main points.

Firstly, respondents predict there will be an increase in personalized and on-demand radio, with more listener sovereignty, personalization options and the gradual disappearance of schedules. Radio will be available when and where listeners want it.

They believe that more content will be produced by the audience and that some user-generated content may be broadcast without editing. After all, this is the era of YouTube and MySpace.

The report also says that different types of content could be linked to different platforms.

The second point is that traditional broadcast radio will continue to play an important role in people’s lives. This is attributed to the strengths of linear radio, including mobility, ease of access and localism, as well as powerful journalistic and artistic content.

Two of the co-authors of the DRACE report, Marko Ala-Fossi and Helen Shaw, will be attending the EBU digital radio conference, DRC07, on 14th and 15th June.

Paul Bennun gets a Second Life for DRC07

With just over two weeks to go until the EBU’s first-ever Digital Radio Conference (DRC07), on 14th and 15th June, I’m delighted to say that Paul Bennun has confirmed he will be taking part. This is no mean achievement, since Paul will be holed up in his London flat all week, as he experiences a virtual existence in some of the best known Internet communities.

Paul will be joining us from Second Life, where his avatar will make a presentation and join in a debate about the importance of the Internet for the future of radio. Participating in the flesh will be Eva Blomquist, who is Programme Director at Swedish Radio, Mads Fink of Danish Radio, Marko Ala-Fossi from the University of Tampere, and the EBU’s Head of New Technology, David Wood.

Paul, who is the co-owner of Somethin' Else, the UK's largest cross-platform production company, is preparing a series about social software for BBC Radio Three. ‘Liquid Life’ will be broadcast in August.

Somethin’ Else has won a number of international awards in radio, software, mobile technology and interactive broadcasting, including BAFTA Awards, Sony Radio Academy Awards and the GSM Association Awards.

Added on 6th June:
Paul's programme will now be called Liquid Living and broadcast on Radio 3 on 4th November. For more details, click here.

ESA plans satellite radio on a shoestring budget

Satellite radio has always been a bit of a non-starter in Europe. Mainly that is because the entry barriers are so steep, both materially and financially speaking.

But as 19th century self-help guru Samuel Smiles reminds us, where there is a will there is a way:

"He who resolves upon doing a thing, by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and secures its achievement. To think we are able is almost to be so - to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself."

Mind you, even Smiles might have baulked at the challenges facing would-be European satellite radio operators. For one thing, you have to persuade enough customers not only to pay a monthly subscription, but also to buy costly new receivers.

The oft-cited success story is the USA, where XM and Sirius are transmitting scores of channels in CD-quality sound to 13 million listeners. Whatever the motives are for their mooted merger, even XM and Sirius are struggling to recoup the roughly one billion dollars each has invested in satellites and terrestrial fill-in repeaters.

Fill-in repeaters are low power transmitters used to reach areas where satellite signals are blocked by tall buildings or mountains, as well as to avoid gaps in reception. I had always taken it for granted they would be an essential part of any satellite radio service.

Last month, though, I came across a story on BBC News Online about a pioneering project by the European Space Agency. On paper, ESA appears to have found solutions that are both practical and cost-effective.

But a few questions remain unanswered, which is why I have contacted Rolv Midthassel, who is in charge of ESA's "Ku-band Multimedia for Cars" project. Hopefully, he'll be able to accept our invitation and answer those questions at the EBU's first-ever digital radio conference.

It will take place in Geneva on 14th and 15th June.

ESA believes it can keep costs low by exploiting geostationary TV satellites nearing the end of their working lives. After about 10 years, the satellites start running out of fuel and drift out of position.

This means they no longer offer sufficient stability for conventional TV reception. ESA believes it can continue to use the satellites, though, by developing a small, mobile antenna to track their position.

The idea is to build the antenna into the bodywork of cars fitted with the multimedia system.

Another interesting point is that the satellites would operate in the Ku band, which is usually used for point-to-point transmissions from remote locations. But Ku band signals can be affected by adverse weather conditions.

ESA, however, claims its networks will be equally as efficient as those operating in band L.

Furthermore, the agency eliminates the need to invest in a network of gap fillers by opting not to stream live content to the in-car receivers. Instead, the audio would be time-shifted.

Multimedia files would be stored in the cache of the vehicle receivers for playback. This would make content available on-demand to motorists, who could also benefit from a range of multimedia services, including updates to digital maps used by navigation devices.

The system will probably use GPRS/UMTS networks as a return channel to enable interactivity.

Robert Freeman believes ESA's cocktail of recycled satellites and time-shifting could be pointing the future for television:

"If this is successful, I’m hoping the same will be done for at least one broadcast TV service, to save the large amount of bandwidth wasted repeating programmes on different channels and at different times."

But despite reportedly successful trials in the Netherlands earlier this year, it is still a big if.

Waiting for digital radio mondiale

The first time I heard about digital radio mondiale (DRM) was seven years ago on a very long train journey to the annual WEF shindig in Davos. I have been waiting ever since.

Sometimes the wait has seemed as interminable as anything experienced by Vladimir and Estragon. Hopes have been raised, only to be dashed again.

One such occasion was the announcement in 2005, at the IFA consumer electronics fair, that receivers incorporating DRM, DAB, LW, MW, SW and FM would hit the shops before Christmas, at prices under 200 euros. It didn't happen.

In fairness, though, these things take time. After all, DAB technology was around for 15 years before it became a commercial reality.

What has convinced me that DRM may be turning a corner is a recent news release from the BBC. It says that Radio Devon and National Grid Wireless are carrying out DRM trials on a medium-wave frequency (855 kHz) in the Plymouth area.

It may sound modest, but I believe it is a very significant development.

Until now much of the focus of DRM trials has been on cross-border, international broadcasting. But AM broadcasting has a much larger audience and of course, bigger audiences are what drive receiver sales.

Interestingly, the Plymouth trials have caught the imagination of the mainstream media for all the wrong reasons. Some, like 'The Guardian,' suggest digital radio mondiale may be on the verge of displacing DAB.

This is piffle, especially in a British context. It reflects the disappointment in some quarters with the perceived failure of digital broadcasters in the UK to deliver on their promise of CD-quality sound.

I have blogged before about the digital quality vs. quantity debate and will not go into it again here.

The fact is that DRM would sound no better than the low quality DAB currently on offer in Britain, which is good enough for voice, but disappointing for classical music. I suspect that some journalists have read that DRM uses AAC encoding and have equated this with better sound quality.

AAC, which is sometimes referred to as MPEG-4 Part-3 in this context, is a highly efficient compression format that simply enables DRM to obtain FM-quality sound at very low bitrates.

DRM uses bitrates ranging from 4.8 to 72kbps, with typical values in the range of 14 to 34kbps. Although the sound quality is less good on short wave frequencies, it is FM quality and eliminates all the crackle and hiss.

It offers high sound quality on all AM broadcasts: short wave, long wave and medium wave.

The DRM Consortium has also moved DRM beyond AM broadcasts to operate on frequencies of up to 120 MHz, including FM broadcasting frequencies in VHF band II, 87.5 to 108 MHz. But that's another story.

In the UK, DRM is the ideal replacement for AM radio - hence the Radio Devon trials. DAB and DRM are complementary technologies, rather than rivals: this point was made also in a discussion document published last year by the British regulator, Ofcom.

Things appear to be moving on the receiver front too and the time may not be far off when DRM/DAB radios replace AM/FM sets.

Morphy Richards has added a DAB/DRM radio to its range of products; receivers from Himalaya have been around for a couple of years; Sangean says its DRM-40 model, a FM/DAB/DRM radio, based on a Radioscape/Texas Instruments chipset, is "coming soon" to the shops.

Sceptics will say they have heard all this before, but what makes it different this time is that next year is 2008. Not only is it the year of the rat, which supposedly favours pioneers and conquerors, but also the year of the Beijing Olympic Games.

There is ample evidence that China is interested in DRM technology: for one thing, China Radio International has been putting DRM-capable transmitters into its European sites. As VT Communications' Richard Hurd told this year's edition of WRTH, "The feeling seems to be that they'll use the 2008 Olympics as a launch pad to promote it [DRM]."

The future of podcasting

Every few months, the EBU organizes a 'Lunchtime Business Briefing' to bring staff up-to-date with developments in media and technology. The last one was a few days ago, when I was press-ganged into sharing a podium with my colleague David Wood to speak about podcasting.

David went first. He provided technical explanations, showed off his new iPod, played the rather sad 'Star Wars Kid' video, which has been watched 900 million times, and recommended a few podcasts.

David even managed to play My Sharona, with the excuse that the song features prominently on President Bush's playlist, as he proceeded to inform, educate and entertain the audience.

The words 'short' and 'straw' flashed across my mind as I stood up to say a few words about trends and the future of podcasting.

My starting point was a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It suggests that while the number of people who have experimented with podcasts continues to grow, few people are downloading regularly.

Other significant findings are that men are more likely than women to download content and that the over-50s are surprisingly keen on podcasts. This last point also emerged from a recent survey by Gramophone magazine, which showed that in 2005 British listeners over the age of 50 downloaded an average of 11 pieces of music.

That podcasting appeals to radically different demographics is reflected too in the published results from the BBC's ongoing Download and Podcast Trial. The most popular weekly shows are In Our Time, where middle-aged intellectuals ponder the meaning of life, and the Best of Moyles, a youth-oriented podcast by the eponymous Radio 1 DJ.

In France, the most popular podcast is 2000 Ans d'Histoire, a history programme which appeals mostly to middle-aged listeners.

In my presentation, I played a clip of GeekBrief, a video podcast aimed at technophiles. I joked that the pretty female presenter was perhaps a reason why more men than women downloaded podcasts.

Music is likely to play a very important part in the future of podcasting. We need look no further than the success of the BBC's Beethoven podcasts - 600,000 downloads in 2005 - and more recently, DR's Mozart anniversary podcasts, which attracted more than a million downloads in the space of a few days.

NRK were pioneers of pop music podcasts in Europe, avoiding rights problems by featuring unsigned bands, under the label Untouched Music. Recently, Belgium's French-language broadcaster, RTBF, reached a landmark deal with local record companies enabling it to offer downloadable music programmes via a website with a friendly GUI.

However, as the Pew survey suggests, the real challenge appears to be getting people hooked on podcasting. Technology may help, but broadcasters need to work on what we used to call stickiness - creating a community of returning users.

On the technology front, Microsoft's MP3 player, Zune, comes with wireless technology that allows users to beam content to friends. Despite the limitations, it's a significant development if you remember that the web's most successful communities have been built on peer-to-peer file sharing.

Mobile phones will undoubtedly play an important part too, as more people start using them as MP3 players. Nokia has made no secret of its ambition to challenge Apple's iPod.

Things are also happening on the content front.

Some broadcasters, including the BBC World Service, have been experimenting with free software, like Odeo, to make their podcasts interactive. The idea is that listeners leave voice messages on a website, which may then be used to create a podcast.

The future of radio

Regulators across Europe are making decisions that will have a dramatic impact on the future of radio. Usually, it is a good sign when they consult public service broadcasters, but in Britain, Ofcom has taken the commendable step of trying to involve listeners as well.

Ofcom's new discussion document, 'The future of radio' invites the public to help establish the areas of debate ahead of a full consultation paper next year.

The 45-page document recognizes the growing importance of on-demand services, such as podcasting, and the opportunities offered by 3G and wireless broadband. It even considers dramatic changes, like the possibility of replacing AM radio with Digital Radio Mondiale.

Interestingly, though, it does not touch upon the quality vs. quantity debate. Many British listeners - especially aficionados of classical music stations - claim that DAB sounds worse than FM radio.

The problem for broadcasters is that quality costs money and they are under pressure to make savings. They must balance the importance of sound quality against the cost of providing new services.

BBC engineers originally estimated that 256 kbit/s was about right for a high quality stereo broadcast signal. But in the end they only had enough bandwidth to provide five stereo services at 192 kbit/s and two mono services at 96 kbit/s.

Some commercial stations are even managing to run services at 48 kbit/s, which is roughly AM quality. On the plus side, this means more choice, which apparently is what the vast majority of listeners want.

Londoners, for example, can choose between more than 50 DAB services, many of which are not available in either AM or FM. Consequently, there are more DAB radios in Britain than anywhere else in the world.

An obvious solution would be to upgrade to a more efficient codec, but the UK is paying the price for all its early success with digital radio. British DAB uses a relatively inefficient MPEG-1 Layer II codec, although the World DMB Forum (formerly the World DAB Forum) is promoting AAC+ .

The UK situation is unlikely to change in the near future because upgrading would make millions of DAB sets obsolete. For this reason, World DMB suggests it would be wise to allow "the parallel use of both audio coding options."

In many other countries, decisions are easier because DAB still hasn't taken off. In Switzerland, for example, the regulator Bakom has recently changed its mind about MPEG-1 Layer II and is adopting AAC+.

As I found out recently, Swiss electrical shops will still try to sell you an alarm clock radio if you ask for a digital set. That is a world away from Britain, where Curry's decided recently to stop selling analogue radios altogether.

Why broadcasters should get a (Second) Life

In the cult John Frankenheimer film, Seconds, a sinister organization offers wealthy Americans the opportunity to buy a new and more glamorous life. The package includes a different identity, as well as the plastic surgery that transforms the film's dour, middle-aged hero into Rock Hudson.

I think I have found a better deal. Linden Lab offers a similar service for less than $10 a month.

Second Life is a virtual online world that has given this dour, middle-aged hack the looks and six-pack abs of a youthful Brad Pitt. My name - that is, my avatar's name - is RadioMike Regenbogen.

And unlike the film, where there is no going back, when I am fed up I can just switch my computer off. Joining the SL community involves no painful surgical procedures, although tasks as mundane as putting on a pair of trousers can be frustratingly difficult to master. 

In the last three months, the number of residents has doubled to 1.5 million. The population is growing at more than 30 per cent a month.

Habbo Hotel, a rival MMORPG (massively multi-player online role-playing game), is already attracting seven million unique visitors every month. The Habbo communities in 29 real world countries, across five continents, have created 66 million characters since it was launched in 2000.

Admittedly, the websites of many EBU members are already attracting as much, or more traffic - seven million unique visitors a month is about the same as swissinfo.org. But these are ultra loyal, communities: around 75,000 members are spending an average of three hours in SL every day.

For the record, I haven't spent too much time in Habbo because it is really aimed at an 11-18 demographic, who meet to play games and chat about boy bands. I guess they just make me feel old and out of touch.

What sets SL and Habbo apart from other MMORPGs is their emphasis on user-generated content and social networking. They are both highly successful examples of what many people are calling the Web 2.0 trend.

Certainly, big business is taking an interest. Record companies have been joining Habbo to reach their teen pop customers, while Adidas, Sony, Toyota and Vodafone and are some of the corporations with a presence in SL.

The MSM are also beginning to take an active interest. The only irony is that with so much lip service being paid to the importance of bringing youngsters back to radio and TV, all the attention is for SL, with little for Habbo.

The BBC is renting a tropical island in SL, where it has staged virtual music festivals. It is providing visitors to the island with free digital radios that will allow them to listen to Radio 1 while they travel around the virtual world.

Last year, the BBC TV journalist Jeremy Paxman broadcast the first-ever studio session from inside the online world.

Not to be outdone, Channel 4 is planning to broadcast its audio programmes to SL residents next year by selling them portable radios. C4 Radio plans to offer a special SL show, reporting on the daily goings-on in the interactive community.

Channel 4 might even make some money out of the venture because SL has a booming economy. Residents can exchange real currency for Linden dollars and back again.

Elsewhere, technology journalist Adam Pasick is giving a whole new meaning to the term 'embedded' by reporting full-time from SL. As Adam Reuter he is the head of the news agency's first virtual bureau.

Incidentally, if like me you are a bit of a news junkie, a good place to hang out and discuss stories is the atrium of the Reuters offices. Just fly or teleport there - this is a virtual world.

If I were you, though, I'd get there quickly because Germany's Axel Springer appears hell-bent on dumbing the place down by launching SL's first tabloid newspaper.

It's a slippery slope and no-one is there to fight the corner for public service journalism in SL. Perhaps the EBU should open offices there?